My Lord, you need to stand up!

Chapter 689 Young people should still explore more.

Wei Dong glanced back once he walked out.

They didn't care how the other party handled or responded; holding onto the BMW was just a way to prevent them from scattering.

He didn't care about any subsequent asset division plan.

Orphans and widows should take care of them.

When they got back in the car, Lao Fang kept saying, "This building is not bad. If it were me, I would turn it into a hotel. Why bother with foreign trade and import/export? The country strictly controls the import of foreign exchange. These middlemen who don't do production have no ability to produce and export for foreign trade. They're just fooling idiots."

Old Fang glanced at the building casually and said, "Why don't you fix it yourself? Hurry up and get it done. Seeing is believing, and what's right there is the most convincing!"

The two of them didn't bother to mention the speculative situation in the city again until they drove back to the western district.

"Group company" is just a conventional term; there's no such thing as a legal entity.

A group is simply a collection of companies that have grown large and powerful, and have invested in and are affiliated with other companies.

In fact, Dongsheng Trading has long been structured as a group company.

There are twenty or thirty subsidiaries in various provinces, not including the sales companies that the company invested in and set up itself.

With the addition of various factories and manufacturing companies, it was a rudimentary form of a super conglomerate, which would be a behemoth in twenty or thirty years.

But it's still not comparable to Lao Fang.

The size and level of a single state-owned enterprise under its jurisdiction are quite impressive.

The container industry was just starting out.

So I listened to Wei Dong explain the relationship between wafer fabs, packaging plants, sound card plants, and speaker plants.

The first two are joint ventures with Citibank, but in reality, Wei Dong is the controlling shareholder. The latter two are investments by Singaporean Chinese, and Wei Dong is also the controlling shareholder, but the overseas companies are mostly owned by Lin Wangfu.

Once mass production begins, the export volume of chips will easily reach hundreds of millions of dollars. After all, chips are just precision-processed silicon materials.

Besides bottlenecks in equipment and photoresist used in the manufacturing process, the main bottleneck is also in raw materials.

Currently, Citibank imports high-precision silica sand. There are only two factories in China that produce silica sand, but their precision is insufficient. The factory in Jiangsu and Zhejiang can only be used for glass, and the other, which is slightly better, can only be used for solar silicon crystal panels.

The silica sand refining process consumes a lot of electricity, so the factory was located in Chengdu, a city with abundant hydropower, and became a third-tier factory. It was then naturally absorbed into the Xishan factory industrial cluster.

Wei Dong only found out he owned a silicon sand plant after he got his hands on a wafer fab, so he quietly recruited a number of people to work there.

They are now trying every means to attract foreign investment to build high-quality silica sand plants, and they even call it serving the United States.

If this is done, we can basically be self-sufficient in the entire process. Even if we are blocked, we can still guarantee the supply of chips for production for ten years. Only auxiliary materials such as photoresist will still have to be imported.

And completing this entire process means generating pure foreign exchange through exports.

Silica sand is extracted from sand and gravel, and then sold at a high-tech price, resulting in pure profit.

The export value of the West Wharf Industrial Zone has increased significantly.

Helping Apple sell high-performance computers will definitely boost sales for sound card manufacturers and speaker manufacturers as well.

This translates to several times the foreign exchange earnings, and it's the sale of intellectual property rights that keeps the main production profits domestically, not just earning a meager processing fee.

Wei Dong also had his own calculations regarding Singapore: "We're all of Chinese descent, so why not keep the profits in China and help him invest in building more things instead of enriching Singapore?"

Old Fang listened with great interest: "You have a very clear understanding of the international situation. Some people always think that Chinese people are this or that, or that Singapore is this or that. But they are independent and sovereign countries, and their interests are taken into account. When they fight, it's a matter of life and death!"

So instead of rushing back to the factory area at the fork in the road, we went to check out the container factory on the other side first.

After a few days, the two semi-automated production lines of the sanitary napkin factory have started operation. Dozens of employees can now produce 200,000 to 300,000 packs per day, which is much faster than the previous semi-automatic packaging line. Of course, the capitalists are making more money as well.

However, the raw materials still need to be transported from Jiangzhou. Fortunately, there are many things that can be transported from the coast to the inland areas at this time, and the trucks are all empty. Now we are focusing on transporting the raw materials for sanitary napkins.

The two cosmetics and shampoo lines further highlight the coastal advantages, as they have been able to continuously produce goods after seizing the factory space from the container factory.

The Guangdong East Branch has already sent people over to coordinate sales.

But most of what's here is intended for export, especially sunscreen.

It's obvious they want to earn foreign exchange.

So Lao Fang was somewhat helpless about the container factory he had built two years ago being taken over by others: "You should leave some for me, it seems they've taken on some work."

During the Spring Festival, Wei Dong carefully reviewed all the documents and materials of the container companies. In essence, Guoji was a metal processing plant that specialized in producing containers.

Then large container rental companies buy them and rent them out to various users, or major shipping companies and docks buy them for their own fleets.

There's not much export shipping in the country right now, so naturally there's not much business to do.

So Guoji, which almost went bankrupt last year, was scrambling for work everywhere, even jobs that weren't container-related. The biggest job they had before the Spring Festival was building boarding bridges for Hong Kong airport.

Yes, it's that metal jet bridge you walk across from the waiting area onto the plane.

Currently, only Beijing Airport uses it domestically, and it is imported.

All others use boarding stairs.

It is said that they thought it looked similar to a shipping container, so they shamelessly went to their door to discuss business, and even had the purpose of learning their advanced technology.

Wei Dong was left both amused and exasperated.

It's not that these business managers aren't hardworking or dedicated, but the nature of container shipping is that it's all about high volume and guaranteed profits; high volume is the defining characteristic.

What kind of business is it to order one or two boarding bridges for Hong Kong airport?

Even if we learn it, how many boarding bridges are needed worldwide?

Foreign boarding bridge manufacturers may not be willing to outsource their production to mainland Chinese companies.

China is far from being a country that's building airports everywhere, so this thing is just a useless piece of junk.

That's why Wei Dong didn't hesitate to occupy the container factory and start producing other things first.

The factory will be returned after it's built there; for now, the settlement will be based on the factory rental price.

Old Fang laughed and endured the scolding: "If you don't get the container business going, I'll charge you exorbitant rent for the factory!"

Wei Dong readily accepted: "That's right, your attitude is correct. In business, we should follow business rules. Even if you're unhappy, then raise the rent instead of finding reasons to shut down or even detain people."

Old Fang patted him on the shoulder: "You have to understand that not everyone can change their mindset, which is why we must do our best to build the special zone well and create a convincing special zone for everyone to see."

Wei Dong actually understood: "So the current chaos in Shenzhen is detrimental to the reform situation."

Lao Fang said helplessly, "We can't control the crazy speculators all over the country, so we can only do our best to show that our direction is correct."

He nodded as he said this: "You're right. We should firmly believe that the North Star will point the way, but we have to rely on ourselves to avoid falling into pits and drowning on the road ahead."

Wei Dong also considered the container factory's situation: "It's good that I have a friend here. He's going back to his family for the Spring Festival. I've analyzed the container issue for him and hope he can come up with a solution from a professional perspective. If all else fails, the container factory can start making computer cases after the Spring Festival. This job is plentiful and reliable, and it's basically a waste of productivity without crossing over into other industries. At least in this phase when there isn't much container business, we can survive first."

Old Fang was pleased, but also made things difficult: "You didn't learn any advanced international technology, did you? You can't just focus on making money; you have to try your best to learn things."

As a result, Wei Dong had a real idea: "Lin Wangfu came back and mentioned a possibility to me. Currently, the Singapore-Canada transshipment terminal handles tens of millions of containers every year. Seventy percent of them are ordinary dry cargo containers, and the remaining thirty percent are refrigerated containers. The profit margins for these are extremely high. We should focus on this area. It is said that there are also special containers, such as flammable and explosive containers, tank containers, and aviation containers. These are just minor issues. Let's put them aside for now and focus on refrigerated containers. Do you remember that we vacuum-packed yak meat from the plateau and sent it to Japan? It was because we didn't have this technology. If we solve this problem, even our transportation to and from the plateau will benefit."

Old Fang clapped his hands with delight: "Yes! Yes, yes, yes, that's the right idea! Do you have the technology? Do you have the manpower? I'll go to Hong Kong to find you the technical information and bring over a few refrigerated cabinets to dismantle!"

Let Wei Dong agree; he will transfer people from Shangzhou Machinery Factory.

Starting with the cold storage of the food factory back then, Shangzhou Machinery Factory later followed suit and developed central refrigeration for factory buildings. They accumulated some technology in this area and were able to learn from and refer to more advanced international technologies.

So they drove back to the city to take Lao Fang across the border. At this point, the border crossing was open for entry but not exit; to get to Hong Kong, they had to go to the city.

But seeing that the BMW was still following behind, we had to settle down first and also show Lao Fang the progress of the factory.

When he returned, he saw that Dong Xueqing had already packed her luggage: "I'm just waiting for you to bring Chongchong back, and Xiaodie will come back to school with me too."

To Wei Dong's surprise, he asked, "What's going on?"

Fengchu stayed in Hong Kong for more than a week, and leaned against the car window: "I'm waiting for you to visit various Hong Kong businessmen. I tested the financial center during the whole Spring Festival and it still can't be completely separated from us. It's impossible for our whole family to be in Jiangzhou. I need to go back to stabilize morale."

Old Fang sat quietly in the passenger seat watching the show.

Making Wei Dong's entire family leave Jiangzhou is actually somewhat similar to the way the sanitary napkin factory moved away from Jiangzhou back then.

If you don't support investment and construction, then I'll just quit and leave.

This time it's different, though. The factory has over 10,000 employees and fixed assets worth hundreds of millions.

There are still so many projects under construction and in operation.

So the main point is to make a show of it, letting Weidong go back from time to time.

But now, after only one Spring Festival, they're already putting on a show of respect, and their own families can't even handle going back home?
Wei Dong still had some reservations.

Old Fang sighed helplessly, "Go back, go back. Even though I've been to jail, I'll arrange a group office for you in Jiangzhou. At least you'll have to go through me first. You're going to Hong Kong? What's the point of me, an old man, going there to save face? I'll stay and guard the factory..."

They stayed behind, grumbling and cursing.

Of course, he also took care of the affairs of the orphan and widow at the same time.

(End of this chapter)